Frunze. Ilim Publishing House, 1967, 327 p. The print run is 1500. Price 1 rub. 47 kopecks.

The uprising of 1916 is one of the brightest pages in the history of the peoples of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, being the largest and most mass movement in the history of Kyrgyzstan before the Great October Socialist Revolution. Many articles and pamphlets were written about it; in 1962, Kh. T. Tursunov published a monograph on the 1916 movement as a whole .1 However, until recently, there was no special study that comprehensively examined the struggle of the Kyrgyz people against the double oppression of baimanapism and tsarism in 1916. This gap is filled by K. U. Usenbaev's monograph.

The author shows the degree of elaboration of various aspects of the problem he considers, noting both the advantages and disadvantages of the works of his predecessors. He made extensive use of archival documents, statistics, literary sources, memoirs, folklore, and other materials. When working on the book, we first drew on the memories of active participants and eyewitnesses of the events. All this allowed K. U. Usenbayev to reveal the social and political motives and economic reasons of the movement, to recreate its true history.

As is known, earlier studies made mistakes and inaccuracies in assessing the Kyrgyz uprising in 1916.2
One of the reasons for this was that the historical context in which the movement originated and took place had not previously been given sufficient attention. In contrast to these works, K. U. Usenbaev's book thoroughly describes the economic, political and social background of the uprising, and carefully analyzes the role of individual classes and social groups in it. The author showed that the situation of the working masses of the indigenous population worsened, social contradictions worsened. Special attention is paid to the penetration of Marxist-Leninist ideas into areas inhabited by Kyrgyz, the awakening of workers ' self-consciousness, friendly relations between the Kyrgyz and Russian working populations and their class solidarity in conditions of double oppression, and the involvement of local workers in the all-Russian revolutionary movement. K. U. Usenbayev examines the forms and methods of the tsarist government's colonial policy in the conditions of patriarchal feudal Kyrgyzstan. His book is rich in factual material about the brutal exploitation of Kyrgyz workers by tsarist colonialists and local feudal nobility. It was the tyranny and violence of the tsarist officials and the Baev-Manaps that led the working people to a decisive struggle for their social and national freedom. Literature usually focuses on

1 Kh. T. Tursunov. The 1916 Uprising in Central Asia and Kazakhstan. Tashkent, 1962.

2 T. Ryskulov. Native revolt in Central Asia in 1916 Kyzyl-Orda. 1927, p. 121; Yu. Abdrakhmanov. An unforgettable anniversary. "Soviet Asia", 1931, N 5-6, p. 174.

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Much attention was paid to the national liberation tendencies of the uprising, and almost nothing was said (or said only in passing) about the insurgent struggle against the Bais and Manaps. 3 K. U. Usenbayev pays great attention in his book to the struggle of the working people of Kyrgyzstan against their own exploiting feudal lords, volost administrators, village and village elders. He describes in detail the course of the uprising both in the south and in the north of Kyrgyzstan and reveals the reasons for its defeat. So far, the course of the uprising in Kyrgyzstan as a whole, especially in its southern part, has not been covered in the literature.

The book examines the friendly relations and mutual support of Kyrgyz and Russian workers during the uprising and after its defeat. Russian labor migrants took an active part in the uprising, and some of them even led separate rebel detachments. The author considers the uprising in the Kyrgyz regions as an integral part of the movement of the peoples of Central Asia and Kazakhstan in 1916. It emphasizes the joint nature of the actions of Kyrgyz, Uzbek and Kazakh workers, the commonality of their destinies and goals, and notes the class solidarity of representatives of these peoples.

There is no consensus in the literature about the nature of the 1916 uprising. Although in general (both in the south and in the north of Kyrgyzstan) It is assessed as a national liberation movement, and some authors believe that it was reactionary in "some areas" of Northern Kyrgyzstan. These "certain regions" include the entire eastern part of the Chui Valley, including Tokmak, Maly and Bolshoy Keminy, the entire Issyk-Kul basin, the central Tien-Shan-Kochkor and Dzhumgla, that is, almost all of Northern Kyrgyzstan. There is a clear contradiction between the assessment of the uprising as a whole and in "some" (and in fact, in the main) regions of Northern Kyrgyzstan. Meanwhile, the author proves that it was in these areas that the action took on a particularly wide scale and was the most massive and protracted. There were thousands of people in the ranks of the rebels here; the working population, taking part in the uprising without exception, provided stubborn resistance to the tsarist punitive detachments.

K. U. Usenbayev gives quite convincing arguments against the assessment of the action in the northern regions of Kyrgyzstan as reactionary. He supports his point of view with archival documents and evidence from other sources. The author defines the insurrection as a national liberation, anti-feudal, anti-imperialist and anti-war one, which joined the general channel of the revolutionary struggle of the Russian proletariat and the working peasantry and became an integral part of the movement of the oppressed peoples of Russia against the tsarist autocracy. At the same time, he emphasizes the reactionary nature of the actions of large manaps, who tried to use the uprising for their own selfish interests.

In this monograph, the driving forces of the uprising are analyzed in detail for the first time. The relation of classes and social categories to the performance, their goals, position and role in the movement are clearly defined. The author pays due attention to the emerging working class and the national bourgeoisie.

K. U. Usenbayev emphasizes that although the uprising ended in defeat, it dealt a serious blow to the tsarist autocracy and contributed to the deepening of the revolutionary crisis in the country. The uprising was a political school for Kyrgyz workers, enriching them with the experience of the liberation struggle. During the uprising, the Kyrgyz workers realized that they could win their freedom only by joining forces with the workers and peasants of Russia in the struggle against the landlords, capitalists, and local exploiters.

The monograph correctly identifies the features of the uprising of 1916 in Kyrgyzstan and defines its main stages, which until now has received little attention.

The book responds to bourgeois falsifiers who distort the history of the 1916 uprising, try to draw a parallel between this movement and the anti-Soviet counterrevolutionary Basma movement, and characterize them as a single national struggle of the indigenous population of Central Asia and Kazakhstan against the Russians.

There are some inaccuracies, omissions, and controversial points in the work (which, however, do not change the overall favorable impression of it). Thus, the book does not show the state of economy and trade in Kyrgyzstan on the eve of the uprising. K. U. Usenbayev, it seems to us, shows excessive delicacy when he criticizes certain concepts, but does not name them.-

3 " A. 15-letiye vosstaniya v Srednoi Azii [The 15th Anniversary of the Uprising in Central Asia], Moscow, 1931, p. 40.

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the moat. It is not clear to the reader (especially to the layman) who is meant. We should have been more critical of the recollections of participants and eyewitnesses of the uprising, and carefully compared them with data from archival and other sources. This is especially necessary where the author is arguing against the concept of" reactionary hotbeds " in some areas of Northern Kyrgyzstan. There are also some very categorical statements in the book. On page 367, the author writes that " the uprising significantly accelerated the defeat of the tsarist army on the fronts of the First World War." It is hardly possible to agree with this unconditionally. It would be more correct to conclude that the uprising of 1916 in Kyrgyzstan had a certain impact on the development of both the crisis of autocracy and the revolutionary movement in Central Asia and Kazakhstan, as the author rightly writes about elsewhere in his work. K. U. Usenbaev's statement that tsarist officials destroyed part of the documents of the 1916 uprising and tried to eliminate all materials related to this movement (p.14) is not supported by a reference to sources and is therefore unconvincing. Some sections of the book are overloaded with factual material. Sometimes there is excessive scrupulousness in covering certain issues, cluttering up individual sections with digital data, tables and citations (p. 83 - 87, 98, 102, 133 - 134, 145 - 147 etc.). At the end of the monograph, an explanation of the abbreviations used by the author should be given, and indexes (subject, geographical names, and names) should be entered.

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